“I plan to propose to Miss Brightwell this afternoon.”
“Goodness!” Lady Fenton dropped her book and twisted in her chair by the fire. “You’ve enticed her from Lord Quamby?” Her face was animated. “Well done, darling!” she cried, holding out her arms. “Come here so I may congratulate you.”
He blinked as if to clear his head. “You’re pleased?” This day was throwing out more shocks than he believed his poor, ravaged system could take. He stared with disbelief at the curved mouth, usually puckered with disapproval. “But, Mama,” he muttered, “you warned me against Miss Brightwell even before I met her. Lord knows, you threatened a veritable schism if I married her. You considered her patently unsuitable a week ago and I can’t see what’s changed. She still comes with no dowry, her father still killed himself to thumb his nose at the moneylenders and God knows who else was after him—”
“But you’ve enticed her from the Earl of Quamby. And the girl is a beauty. She has style and finesse. She’ll make you a fine wife.”
Fenton could only stare. There was not even the suggestion of a slur upon Fanny’s reputation. If his mother had heard whispers she’d have said something. Fanny’s ineligibility had been the result of something entirely different, as far as his mother was concerned. Something entirely irrelevant. Why, in view of everything he’d learnt in the past couple of hours, Fanny had been the most innocent of debutantes and certainly a virgin when he’d…
He swallowed down his guilt as he finished the sentence…taken her virtue before offering to make her his mistress.
“What does anything matter now you’ve pulled the rug from under Lord Quamby’s feet?” Lady Fenton cut in with a dismissive wave of her hand. She looked grotesquely playful as she patted the footstool by her side in invitation. “Really, Fenton, you make me sound like an old tartar. Besides, at the time I had good reason to warn you, with that detestable mother of hers ready to insinuate herself where she could.”
Fenton, who had chosen to remain standing, was silent as he digested this. “You’re telling me it was only her mother you’d taken against?”
“Lofty little Lottie Lucas, that’s right.” Lady Fenton looked as if she’d just drunk sour milk. “As I think I mentioned, we were together at Mrs Smedley’s Seminary for the Daughters of Gentlemen, in Kensington.” For a moment his mother looked like an old and angry parody of Bramley as she clenched her fist. “The whey-faced ape-leader said I smelt of shop because grandfather’s fortune came from brewing.”
Fenton felt ill. He swayed before forcing his manliness to the fore. So much had happened in just a few short days. He’d taken too much of what he’d heard at face value, leaving him looking like a fool.
Worse, he’d quite possibly ruined all chance of future happiness with the utterly beguiling Miss Brightwell because of Bramley’s jealousy and an old grudge held by his mother.
Rising, Lady Fenton warmed her back at the fire as she shook her head. “Curiously, Miss Lucas later asked me to attend her at her wedding to Monty Brightwell. I suppose she was dangling after a generous wedding present.”
“You attended Lady Brightwell’s wedding?” Fenton swung out of his mother’s orbit and began to pace, shaking his head. How much more could he endure?
Lady Fenton clapped her hands and her eyes glittered with excitement once more. “And now you’re to steal Miss Brightwell away from the Earl of Quamby, which, upon my word, will set up that dowager’s bristles nicely. She was ever the schoolmarm. Did I tell you what the old Friday-faced gorgon said to me just after she became Lady Quamby…?”
“Lord Fenton, my Lord.” Lord Quamby’s butler raked a disapproving eye over the viscount as he passed into the centre of the company. The young man’s cravat was still askew, and he’d obviously not attended to the cut on his cheek.
Fanny managed to plaster an expression of careless unconcern upon her face as she looked up from her discussion with Lord Quamby.
So he had come back. Obviously her little charade had worked, and now her future happiness rested upon the next few moments. Her hands felt cold and clammy. She gripped Lord Quamby’s arm, her spirits bolstered by his theatrical wink.
“Methinks Miss Brightwell has just snared her viscount,” he murmured, giving her hands a quick squeeze. “Don’t let him off too easily, my poppet. The more you make him suffer now, the more he’ll respect you for it, I promise.”
The Dowager Duchess Quamby, who was chatting comfortably with Lady Brightwell over a dish of tea, offered their guest a seat.
Antoinette, looking up from the game of piquet she was playing at a table in front of the fire with Bramley, giggled. “You look very dark and Byronesque, Lord Fenton,” she said.
Ignoring her and with the most cursory acknowledgement of the rest of the company, Fenton focused his glowering expression upon Lady Brightwell. “I wish to speak to your daughter. Alone.”
Fanny watched her mother exchange disapproving looks with the Earl’s mama. Her heart rate increased.
Lord Quamby knew exactly what this was about, and she already had his approbation. But her mother was not going to be pleased.
Interjecting before Lady Brightwell could reply, Fanny ran a languid hand across her brow, and sighed. “I’m positively fagged to death from all that walking about the room we did only an hour ago, Lord Fenton. Surely you can say all that needs to be said in front of present company?”
“I cannot.”
“Unpardonable,” muttered Lady Brightwell of the man Fanny knew her mother would have em
braced with open arms as her daughter’s suitor mere days ago. The reflection galvanised her into rising.
“Just three minutes, my Lord,” she said with a smile, taking Fenton’s arm and strolling with him to the alcove.
Her leisurely progress ended with an unseemly push so that she landed, for the second time that day, with a thud on the window seat obscured by the gold-tasselled curtain. For the second time that day, Fenton’s face loomed over hers as his arms gripped the windowsill on either side of her face.
“Enough of these games—”